Wednesday, October 3, 2012

I just finished watching the debate tonight. As I anticipated the debate earlier today and imagined what it would be like to be give the equivalent of oral exams with an opponent in front of 50 million Americans, I thought that both of these men are pretty amazing. I couldn't do it.

I think it was the best debate I've ever watched. Though half of you will disagree with me, I thought they were two of the best candidates we've had for a long time. One of the lowest points I experienced was a Bob Dole rally in 1996. I attended the rally not as a Dole fan but instead out of convenience: it was in the parking lot at my company. Governor Pete Wilson gave the opening remarks and I was ready to vote for him for President. He was good. When Bob Dole spoke is was one of the most disappointing things I've ever experienced. I never was excited about either Bush. McCain was just a notch above Dole in my view.

On the Democrat side, Dukakis, Gore, Kerry didn't seem like much either.

No matter how people try to spin who Mitt Romney is, the truth is he's an impressive man. The only attacks seem to be against a straw man. This most recent add made me laugh (Not at Richard Hayes, but instead at the people who thought up the ad).

Richard says that sometimes residents come out and shake their hands, and give them hugs and that Mitt Romney doesn't care about him. He says that lifting tons of trash by hand is breaking his body (even thought the opening scene clearly shows the robotic arms on the trucks that lift and dump the trash cans).
The straw man here of course is the person in side their house who never interacts with their trash collector. Of course that description fits a large majority of Americans. But this straw man is insensitive and doesn't care.
A little research by the labor union producing the ad would have found out that Mitt Romney spent time doing various every day jobs when running for governor, one of which was - garbage collector. Here's a quote from his book:

I decided to spend a day every few weeks doing the jobs of other people in Massachusetts. Among other jobs, I cooked sausages at Fenway Park, worked on asphalt paving crew, stacked bales of hay on a farm, volunteered in an emergency room, served food at a nursing home, and worked as a child-care assistant. I'm often asked which was the hardest job—it's child care, by a mile.
One day I gathered trash as a garbage collector. I stood on that little platform at the back of the truck, holding on as the driver navigated his way through the narrow streets of Boston. As we pulled up to traffic lights, I noticed that the shoppers and businesspeople who were standing only a few feet from me didn't even see me. It was as if I was invisible.